Creepy Meat Wagon... of DOOM!

Yesterday, Thursday, I completed probably the most hilarious project to date. I trolleyed the meat chickens from their former home in the garage across the yard and into their new spot in the turkey house. It was extremely funny.

The meats were shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Normally when we move the meat chickens we transport them in buckets... because they are young and small. However, this winter's creepy meats are more chicken sized and one alone would fill a bucket. There was no conceivable way, I determined, to herd the meats all the way across the yard. And I wasn't going to carry one meat at a time. So I had to get creative.

Enter the garden trolley. It's one of my favorite things. Originally christened the "Bacon Wagon of DOOM" by Chai Chai it soon became the Creepy Meat Wagon... of, you know, ... Doom. It was awesome.

My Dog#1 thought it was amazing.

At first the meats eyed my trolley with suspicion. Then they freaked out. Then they thought it was pretty good. They were ridin' high and enjoying the scenery.

You have to see this footage of the meats rollin' along!

Pretty soon we got over to the turkey house. When we rolled down the slight incline they all hunkered down like they were on some kind of creepy meat roller coaster. Only one of them put their wings up in defiance... however, upon closer inspection I saw that it was only because he kind of got tangled up in the piece of hog panel I used as a top to keep them all in the wagon.

Once they found the food they didn't care about their new space.

I popped each one out and into one side of the turkey house. They were astounded. Then they found the food and could not have cared less where they were. Until I brought out a water bucket. Then they went back to being astounded and had a big discussion about it. It was their first real bucket.

Action shots of the meat creepin' around their new spot.

With the first batch settled I gathered and trolleyed the rest of the meats over - with my #1 Dog's help. He kept them in line and generally danced around at all the excitement.

It was quite a day here draggin' around my creepy meat in the Doom Wagon.

Happy Friday everyone - do you have a Creepy Meat Wagon of Doom?

I found my old hen!

I can now safely say that we all made it! Take THAT you stupid polar vortex and get the heck out out out! I have had it. Ugh!

Smell ya later, polar vortex! Why don't you make some tracks and leave!

The best news is that after being missing all day I found my old hen - she was not there this morning and I was afraid that she didn't make it on our last horribly cold nite. But when I went out for chores I looked in one last spot...and there she was! She was kind of trapped under something in the garage.

She is a completely useless, lame, rickety, somewhat featherless, old bitty but I just love her.

So now that she is freed, fed, and happy I can finally relax knowing that we all made it. We didn't have any losses. These last several days have been really tough. Chores were hard, it was exhausting being outside, the house was difficult to heat, the dogs were bored, and the wind was relentless...but we made it.

Tomorrow it should be above freezing and I think I'll work outside the whole time.

Just like me - the barnyard hated being cooped up. The hens flew out of the chicken house, the ducks headed for the sunshine, and the geese generally tromped around screaming at everything and pooping on every surface.

The goats were glad to get outside too. But more on that later...

For now everyone can finally exhale and relax. We conquered the Evil Polar Vortex of DOOM!

Happy I-don't-even-know-what-day-it-is, everyone! Did you survive? Everyone OK?

It was so cold the interweb froze!

I'm not sure why I was surprised when our internet gave out earlier today - we are holding steady at a -6* with a -27* windchill. Zoikes! It was so cold the internet froze!

Me and the dog on the ice planet, Hoth.

Actually I don't know why we lost service but it's back on. Hopefully it will stay on but if not - we are just fine. In fact we are doing great. Everyone is tucked in and we are by the fire.

Tonite will be our hardest, coldest night but hopefully we'll be on the upswing by Wednesday.

For everyone in the polar vortex - stay strong, stay warm. Come on over to 'the facebook' where we've been comparing windchills all day. So far C. in Minnesota is winning. And we all have pretty hard feelings for the folks in Cali - you know of whom I speak....

For the folks in the south who've never seen this kind of thing.... be very careful this kind of extreme cold. Believe me, is nothing to fool around with. Check out ready.gov's checklist of do's and don'ts for yourself and your home. Keep your chickens in, keep your faucets dripping, and keep an emergency kit in your car (hat, gloves, boots, heavy jacket, blanket, etc.). Don't think just because there are not high winds that you won't lose power so be vigilant and stay ahead of the cold. 

Everyone in our barnyard is doing just fine. But technically they are not in the barnyard but they are all in houses and coops - tightly buttoned up and double stacked. It's amazing how the animals know that this is a bad situation and when they would normally be killing each other... well.. right now it's all the Peaceable Kingdom. Give it a couple days and they will be back to fighting and carrying on, I'm sure.

Stoke the fires and pile on the cats - it's looking to be a four dog night for sure!

Stay warm everyone!

The Dowager Teddi Grumpkins

In honor of tonite's premier of Downton Abbey I present to you the Dowager Teddi Grumpkins...

 Teddi is our grumpiest cat

When I first heard about it I thought the show was called DownTOWN Abbey and I thought it was a sitcom about a cloister of hip and urban young nuns and their wacky adventures in the city. Boy, was I disappointed.

To tell you the truth I'm not a fan of Downton Abbey. I know that people love it but there's not enough car chases, aliens, explosions, or running gun battles for me. If a show or movie doesn't have enough good one liners like, "Get to da choppa!" then I'm not just interested. But if you like it then that is just great, I hope you love the premiere.

Back to Teddi.

We met her in our Adventure Tails in Part 2 of Kai and Bandit's tale.  One of my friends always catches my movie references... but I stumped him this time with my Dowager. He thought I was talking about the wise cracking Dowager Countess of Grantham from Downton Abbey. But really I had in mind this stunning scene from the  Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor from 1987. This is how I see Teddi but really she is just kind of an old, crazy bag lady.

Teddi has hated me the entire time she has been here. She had a hard luck story but she is on the upswing for sure. Teddi finally figured out that I'm warm and now she has a use for me. She sleeps with me because I'm snugly and let her cuddle up under the covers.  Her hatred has turned into being just mostly mildly annoyed with me. I consider this a giant leap forward.

Isn't she cute? We think she is about 93 years old.

We really thought Teddi was circling the drain a while ago. But she has seemed to bounce back. Our Good Vet was really surprised at how well she was doing that last time we took Teddi in to get her tires rotated and her oil checked. Now she doesn't even have that heart murmur. I'd like to think that it's because she's getting so much snuggling.

I'll be doing a lot of snuggling tonite. Our weather hasn't changed yet but we will be having -10* windchills starting tomorrow and it will only get worse. Fortunately for me, and thanks to a pal, I have plenty of action and adventure viewing. So tonite while you are all oohing and awwing over Downton Abbey you can bet that Teddi and I will be watching intergalactic bounty hunters, tales of valor, and all kinds of running gun battles.

Happy Viewing everyone!

Tommy Boy - Nailed It

So remember just the other day I gave a list of goat due dates? Well, let's just scrap that and start all over. Apparently all that driving around I did for Dahli and Debbie didn't amount to a hill of beans. Good thing we got Tommy.

There he is, Tommy Boy. Look at that hair!

Based on the horrific goings-on that occurred yesterday we can assume that neither Debbie nor Dahli were bred by that huge Nubian. For the record, Tommy loves it here. Debbie and Dahli love him. It's all worked out very nicely.

He's short but Debbie likes him.

Going forward the new dates appear to be:

Nibbles 4/17 - 4/19
Debbie 5/28
Dahli 5/28 - 5/30
Daisy 5/27 - 5/31
Darla 5/24 - 5/28

I'm going to be swimmin' in goatie babies. And you know how excited I am to be making..... All. That. Money. Hundred dolla billz, y'all. Ching-ching gettin' paid over here... It's all about the pentiums, baby.. I mean.. benjamins.
[Editor's note: you know who you are, fellow Weird Al fan.]

But what if I don't sell all those babies? Well, if we have some leftovers then we will take all that folding money from our big sales, fence around the pond, and let the remaining goaties continue our clearing project. Then this fall we can fire up the grill, have us some goat chops, and think about how we are reaching our goals by effectively managing our farm.

My favorite, Miss Duck - not a stanky goat.

Back to Debbie and Dahli - what's the deal with them not being bred? I dunno.  It may have to do with the fact that I can't count and might have had the days wrong. But actually I think my friend Vicki had it figured out. She thought that maybe all that riding around in the truck may be throwing the Double D's out of heat.

I thought maybe Vicki was crazy but then the owner of that Nubian buck basically said the same thing about her own doe... well, then it didn't sound so crazy after all. If I think about it, the best success we've had was when Debbie was left with a buck for several weeks or when we had SnaggleHorn here. So that could be it.

Am I now sold on having a buck on staff full time?

No.

We are still gonna have to find a place for him to be in his "off season." And we are going to have to do more fencing. There is also the big concern - what if he gets to the ladies and breeds them before we are ready for that?

And then there is all that stank.

Also, he'll need a friend. I am not his friend. Fortunately for him, he just runs from me. I didn't even have to get the dog. But at some point I'm going to have to pull him out of the goat yard and he will need a buddy.

So we'll hope for all's well that ends well, possibly in a goat barbeque. But let's keep our fingers crossed for two perfect doelings from each momma and a new fenced in area for Tommy Boy.

Happy Saturday, everyone! What do you think about Tommy Boy's hair?

Snow Day

Here comes the cold... but first the snow. It snowed all day on Thursday - we ended up with more than the 1-3 inches they originally predicted. I hated it.

But the dogs loved it. Kai and Zander are made for snow so they never wanted to come in. I was done with the cold after a few minutes so I marched everyone inside. There were a lot of sad faces.

Everyone in the barnyard was also marched right into their coops and houses... which was easy because most everyone was already in by the time I went out for chores. To make sure they got their houses and coops warmed up I got everyone settled earlier than normal and cranked on the heat lamps.

At this writing (Thursday nite) the wind chill is -3* but it will get much worse early next week. We'll be doing storm preps all weekend trying to stay ahead of the bitter cold. They are tossing around numbers like -13* without the windchill and a high of 0*.

Saturday we are going to try and butcher the rest of the turkeys and get them in the freezer so they don't... well... freeze. I also want the turkey house space. Nibs and Darla are on one side (meat turkeys on the other) and I want to try and move all of the goats into the turkey house. I'll need both sides for that. The turkey house is a bit more protected from the wind and is easier to keep warm than the goat house. We are also going to load up on straw so we can get everyone deeply bedded down.

As for me, I'll be doing a lot of baking. It's a great way to keep the house warm and you get snacks. In fact... there is my timer. Fresh hot bread right out of the oven!

Happy Friday everyone - are you doing your storm preps for the cold weather?

Looking Forward

So did you have a nice break? Are you back to work/school or still on holiday? We are sort of back on schedule... unfortunately we launched directly into another winter storm. Let's think about some where sunny and 75*....

Remember when it was summer and everyone was happy?

I was well prepared to launch directly into 2014, bright eyed and bushy tailed... but wouldn't you know that this was the one morning that my hubby got up before me and took the dogs out. So I didn't have my One Bark Woof Alarm to get me up. I was still in a heap when The Big Man got out of the shower. I barely made it out to open the gate for him. Despite my slow start... I'm looking forward to 2014.

I think this will be our best year yet.  A couple things are at the top of my list...

Pork chops. It's all I can think about.

1. Pigz. I can't believe I'm saying this but I can't wait to get pigz. More accurately, I can't wait to butcher grown out pigz. Last nite we had some epic pork chops - bone in, at least 2 inches thick, and a nice layer of fat. They were so beautiful that I opened a special bottle of wine that I had been saving. Remind me of those chops when I'm cursing those filthy beasts. 

This is Lil Buff - she was one of my favorite hens ever. 

 2. Chicks. We kind of messed up this last year and did not effectively manage the layers. We need to make sure that we get a clutch of new girls hatched. I love my old biddies but we need some young layers to keep the egg harvest rolling in. 


3. Not for reasons that you might initially expect.... but we are gonna have a bang up harvest of baby goatlings! The new guy, Tommy Boy, has really been putting in extra effort to get his chores done, if you know what I mean.

Tommy is so splashy that all this babies should look like this. 

If my calculations are correct (and all of the goats are bred) then we can expect goat babies on 4/10, 4/12, 4/19, 5/24, and 5/27!  So if we get 2 perfect doelings from each momma then that is 10 little moneymakers which means... *OFG takes out abacus and performs calculations...*  I'm gonna be rollin' in the dough!  Am I looking forward to adorable baby goats? NO! All I can think of is hundred dollar bills... which I will use to wipe my tears of joy when I sell all them babies...

4. The clearing project. We've been making progress on the clearing project initially started by the goats. Wow am I excited! I can't wait to turn this into useable area. We can improve the drainage, use it for pasture, and even better still - set up our fencing so the dogs can patrol this area. While I wasn't able to shake the weasel last year... he won't stand a chance this time. Take a swing at my meat chickens this year, you rat bastard, you'll have no where to hide from the Dog Horde.

Kai and Zander. Stone cold killers. Can't wait to hunt varmints.

5. Better firewood management. This year we are going to do better with our firewood harvest. Once again we waited too long to get it under control. We've managed to eek out enough firewood from our clearing project but this next year we really need to get it in gear.

One of the best things we've been able to do is to use a bunch of felled small trees. These were taken out of the years-past hog lots, topped, then cut into useable sizes. You wouldn't think that a bunch of "posts" would amount to much but we got a nice little whack of wood from them. They dry quickly and make a nice hot fire in our wood burning stove. Unfortunately some of the bigger trees, downed from storms, were left too long. We had high hopes for a couple trees that were snagged by others and not on the ground.. but they started to rot and so a total waste.

Mostly I can't wait for it to be summer again!

6. I can't wait to "cook the M" again this year! I was not prepared for how much we loved our own maple syrup. At first it seemed like a silly project.. but actually it was a lot of fun despite the danger of being raided by the cops. We've loved having the syrup so this year we will go all out. You might want to get that bail money ready tho.. you know how much I want to be involved in a resisting arrest charge. I should probably get ahold of my attorney too...

7. And of course I can't wait to get the garden started. 2013 was the Year of the Tater and I hope to have just as much success....but maybe this time more moderate success and not so much insanity. Oh who am I fulling? If they have 50# sacks of seed potatoes on sale I'll probably get 2 or 3 and really go all out.

Happy New Year everyone! What are you looking forward to in 2014?